Fall 2012 Applicant Chit Chat

[Hopin'-n-Prayin']

According to my non-academic background, I try to afford people the most respect I possibly can...a number of professors from top programs have told me they like being called Dr., it recognizes their accomplishment. Typically, I try to call people what they want to be called. That does not mean anyone who disagress is committing some faux paux, but it is also pretentious to intimate that doing so is somehow disparaging to MDs.

Also, grad students, while no longer undergrads, are still students. Professors (and adjuncts, for that matter) are employees of the school who are above the grad students on the totem pole.

I think sometimes people develop tunnel vision regarding the sanctity of thier own viewpoints. I also think that several weeks of hero-worship can fuel this development.

[Kai210]

i don't call any of my professors "dr." except on my CV when i list my committee members. but that's just a product of my non-academic background. when someone yells "is there a doctor here?" they don't mean the dude that studies the antebellum south. (i know this will anger some people here, but i don't care. i still think it's pretentious).

while grad students are not on equal footing with professors, grad students are also not on equal footing with undergraduates. in fact, grad students are probably given far more respect and weight than adjuncts, and adjuncts certainly refer to profs by their first names. again, i don't go to first-name basis until they start addressing themselves by their first names to me, but i think once that door is opened graduate students should take it. you may not begin grad school as their colleague, but by the time you finish you want those professors to think of you as a colleague. even better if they say that about you in an LOR for a job.

Spot on! I tend to only call a professor "Dr." on my CV as well; I also will do it sometimes if I am in the company of undergraduates. I do so to prevent undergrads from believing that they have the license to call professors by their first names. I saw a situation like that once with someone, and it was not good. I think it is important to be formal when the situation arises, and I tend to find that even professors will incline themselves to being more formal with each other around undergraduates.

The other point I'll make is this. Students who tend to keep things formal even after they are given the opportunity to be less-formal are not respected more for doing so. And in some cases, it can work against you. As my advisor often says, when you travel to X and Y for a campus interview, you want professors there to see you as a colleague. It doesn't start when you finish your defense; it starts now. I think during the application season, there's a tendency to think of professors as otherworldly or supernatural beings who have the other ultimate authority over the life and death of your career. And to some degree, it is true. But what you will find is that these intellectual giants are human and as normal in their approaches as you are. They want to be respected. They do not, however, want you to be obsequious. Sometimes, it can come off as fawning when you are told/given the indication to call a professor by his or her first name and you deign to a more formal approach in which you position yourself as an ongoing neophyte. To that point, I know a young lady who refused to call a professor by her first name after being asked to do so. The professor asked her one day, "When are you going to grow up and start seeing me as your colleague? The job market is atrocious and you are making things worse for yourself." A bit much but the point there was as Strange Light Pointed out: "Once that door is opened graduate students should take it."

[TMP]

and in your cover letter and, if appropriate, your SOP.

[virmundi]

And you were accepted to Yale. And Brown. And USC. And UCSB. This made my heart warm and fuzzy. I have a similar story, and I'm so happy to see other first-gens succeeding. Congrats!

Thanks Goldie -- it has been a long journey already (with years and years left to go!) and it would have been impossible without the many people who've seen promise in me. Frankly, I'm a little terrified now that all of the visiting days are coming up.

[oseirus]

I hope you're happy Crater ... see what thou hath wrought! But seriously let us know which side you choose in this fascinating debate ... if not for anything so the vanquished side will slink away in the misery of knowing their righteousness of their cause will NOT be impeded whilst the victors will enjoy the smug satisfaction of wining another debate ... oooo the possibilities!

[virmundi]

Heck, Oseirus! I don't have a horse in this race -- I was just pointing out my personal (and thus far, successful) approach. Part of my approach to titles, formality, respectfulness, deference, etc. is based on the realization that I am very much *not* enculturated from birth in the academic world, so I take my queues from the people who (literally) can deep-six my career if I get on their bad side. My efforts to be sensitive to the preferences of others has, by the by, also served me very well in negotiating research trips to countries where formality is still very much a norm (and built into language, accents, etc.)...!

Obviously, if I end up going to a school where all of the professors are commonly referred to by their first names, I will adopt that convention. In my mind, it is about being adaptable and sensitive to others -- I see far too many graduate students at my current school who come from informal cultures elsewhere and get really upset or self-righteous because a professor tells them that they prefer to be referred to as "Professor such-and-such" and allow this to distract them from the real prize, which is their degree and their future career.

Edited to add: I see this phenomenon particularly in older graduate students who see themselves as peers with the professors. As an older graduate student, I am very much aware of the fact that it is up to me to *prove* to my professors that I am worthy of being considered their colleague and peer. It doesn't serve me at all to get wrapped up in an equality discourse just because the professor that I'm TA'ing for right now is younger than I am and wants me to call him "Professor Lastname..."! He's a great guy and he's earned the right to go by the moniker of his choice as far as I'm concerned.

If/when I'm a professor, perhaps I'll change my name to "Doctor Professor" and then confuse people by telling them that I don't care whether they call me by my first or last name as long as they don't refer to me as "Professor Professor!"

Edited February 21, 2012 by virmundi

[runaway]

Poking my head out of lurking because I think this discussion is really interesting... I was told one that it's common in the south for professors to be referred to as "Dr." while in the north it's more common to call them "Professor." I certainly noticed this difference firsthand when I transfered from a school in a south to a school in the Northeast. I wonder if regional differences have anything to do with the way some people approach this?

I was also told once to not include 'Dr.' in front of the names of my professors in my personal statement, because the context makes it clear that they obviously have attained a PhD (ie, it becomes redundant). Bad advice?

[New England Nat]

My parents both have PhDs and my mother very early on taught me that a PhD shouldn't use his or her title in a social setting. But than again neither should an MD and that it's pretentious on both counts. Unless you are in an academic or medical setting it is pretentious. But if you are in a medical setting you may find that even if a doctor wanted to be called by his first name the people around them wont do it. One of my siblings is a MD and tried to get nurses to use her first name and they just wont do it. She's an attending and someone around has to be "Doctor". The med students and the residents she never tried because it's a hiearchy thing.

But the one thing that will make her rant a storm is the "MD" license plate. But she's my mother's daughter. When my parents were divorcing my father's lawyer (and the judge) kept calling him "Dr." and her "Mrs". They both had PhDs from the same department in a science.

So the long and the short of it. "Dr." in the class room or in an academic setting not pretentious. "Dr." at a party, pretentious.

[Hopin'-n-Prayin']

Right. I am much less invested on which is the proper way to adress a prof. in general than I am in the fact there is definitely not a particular correct way or a "one characterization" fits all approach to Crater's specific inquiry...

[midnightfox]

Looking at the results board, I noticed that someone yesterday posted that they had applied for the M.A. program at Northeastern University but had their application shifted into the Ph.D. track and were accepted. Does anyone know if this is something that normally occurs, or if a graduate program does this, is it indicative of a lack of quality applications received for the Ph.D. program? I'm curious because I too was a Northeastern applicant (for the Ph.D. program) but haven't heard anything. In fact, I'm pretty close to going 0-14 in this application cycle.

[New England Nat]

Right. I am much less invested on which is the proper way to adress a prof. in general than I am in the fact there is definitely not a particular correct way or a "one characterization" fits all approach to Crater's specific inquiry...

Oh, absolutely. My department is super formal and I have some professors that are "first name" and some that are sometimes first name and sometimes "Prof. last name". And some people I think I'll be calling "Prof. Last Name" when I am up for retirement. Also very common is "Last Name" when referring to someone but not in their presence. One person specifically told people that she was "Prof. Last Name" until they passed their generals examinations, and than she could be "First Name". I know of someone at Penn who was "Prof. Last Name" until you were hooded.

So no, there isn't a rule, and believe me, Princeton loves rules so if one existed we'd be following it.

[Kelkel]

But the one thing that will make her rant a storm is the "MD" license plate. But she's my mother's daughter. When my parents were divorcing my father's lawyer (and the judge) kept calling him "Dr." and her "Mrs". They both had PhDs from the same department in a science.

I think that it's much more common for people to formally refer to men as their official title regardless, and leave the woman as a Mrs./Ms. I've grown up in the South and it's definitely prevalent (also prevalent: Mrs. Man's Full name... I think that's fine being called that immediately after the wedding ceremony, but not years later).

My mom was addressing a sympathy card to a professor and husband, and asked what she should address it as. I told her Dr. and Mr. He's an engineer so she joked that she should write Engr. The professor (same lady-professor as before actually) later said she could have been addressed as Mrs.

But the South (in my experience) is all about needless formality.

[Ganymede18]

there's needless formality and then there's harmfully sexist formality.

[New England Nat]

there's needless formality and then there's harmfully sexist formality.

Yeah, that was the point of that particular story. I told it mostly to make people aware that choices about formality that you might use do have the potential to be harmful even if you don't mean it (hense the judge in the case). But we all know that there are different rules for men and women. Although everyone dresses more formally here than they did at any other school I'd ever been to, the female professors almost uniformly dress better than the men.

[StrangeLight]

oh dear god, NEVER call a female professor "ms." or "mrs." just don't do it, unless they go out of their way and ask you to refer to them as "mrs. ______." ONLY if they explicitly ask you to. using ms. or mrs. is not polite or respectful or formal. it's actually very demeaning and i'd be shocked if ANY female professor asked to be addressed that way. maybe that's what the old dogs in the boys' club of a department call her, but i doubt it's EVER how she'd want to be addressed at work.

and for what it's worth... someone made the point that profs and adjuncts are employees of the university. well, so are graduate students. to those of you that have yet to attend grad school, make NO mistake: you are labour. you are cheap, precarious, expendable labour. unless of course you're unionized. then you're cheap, precarious, expendable collective labour.

of course i defer to what people want to be called. only an asshole would specifically go out of their way to call someone something they don't want to be called. but that works both ways: if a prof wants to be "professor" or "doctor" i say it (to their faces... who knows what goes on within the confines of the grad student lounge). but if a prof wants to be called by their first name, and indicates that to you either explicitly or through email signature, then do it. that's like someone being named robert and asking you to call them bob and yet you insist on calling them robert.

[Ganymede18]

regarding profs your age or younger insisting on a title, i know of one instance in which a particularly youngish faculty member was instructed to do this to cultivate professional distance, this makes some sense to me, since its easy to envision uncomfortable or even bad situations arising when a student mistakes a prof. for a peer (grading issues, etc.). that said, i tend to err on the side of collegiality over heirarchy. In my partner's admissions, she's addressed people by first name basis who do same to her. her one acceptance addressed to her by last name she addressed professor by same. I don't think that's a rude practice. if the prof. prefers more deference, s/he can say so, although if it were me I would take that into account when deciding if I wanted to work with them, since in an advisor/advisee relationship at the doctoral level I find that level of formality off-putting.

[virmundi]

For my part, I will address my future advisor as "Domina" or "Dominus" and approach them while genuflecting and singing the "Laudes regiae" as they enter rooms if this is what they want so long as they give me the professionalization I need and help me open the doors to a job when I'm done. Whether they behave like the Gracchi, Augustus, Diocletian, Gandalf, Galadriel, Andy Griffith, or Lucille Ball is really beside the point so long as they have a sincere interest in aiding me.

[goldielocks]

Besides the title/no title debate, today's a pretty slow day around these parts, eh? I wonder if departments are just settling back to work after the holiday yesterday? I am wondering when UIC and Boston will decide to release decisions so I can officially be done with this cycle. I know there are some of you here waiting for many more decisions... hoping this week brings some good news your way.

[New England Nat]

Besides the title/no title debate, today's a pretty slow day around these parts, eh? I wonder if departments are just settling back to work after the holiday yesterday? I am wondering when UIC and Boston will decide to release decisions so I can officially be done with this cycle. I know there are some of you here waiting for many more decisions... hoping this week brings some good news your way.

I wouldn't assume that most places had a holiday yesterday. I've been through several state universities and now an ivy and none of them had presidents day off. I would bet that many departments were working yesterday.

[Kelkel]

oh dear god, NEVER call a female professor "ms." or "mrs." just don't do it, unless they go out of their way and ask you to refer to them as "mrs. ______." ONLY if they explicitly ask you to. using ms. or mrs. is not polite or respectful or formal. it's actually very demeaning and i'd be shocked if ANY female professor asked to be addressed that way. maybe that's what the old dogs in the boys' club of a department call her, but i doubt it's EVER how she'd want to be addressed at work.

I want to make clear that in my post, she requested that my mom (a woman outside academia) title her as Mrs.

When I said needless formality, I was refering more towards titling them Dr. over Prof. But yes, I agree the sexism is rampant in the South and it is damage.

In notification news, if anyone is waiting for results from a school in Louisiana (LSU or Tulane), don't expect anything this week. Today is a (world's better) holiday for us and it's common for schools to take off most if not the whole week.

HAPPY MARDI GRAS! Go eat your little hearts out before that 40 day fast.

[Simple Twist of Fate]

Besides the title/no title debate, today's a pretty slow day around these parts, eh? I wonder if departments are just settling back to work after the holiday yesterday? I am wondering when UIC and Boston will decide to release decisions so I can officially be done with this cycle. I know there are some of you here waiting for many more decisions... hoping this week brings some good news your way.

I wasn't expecting anything from BU soon, but I just quickly checked the results page and it seems like they could have already announced. I'm not expecting much from them, given their funding problems, though.

[StrangeLight]

yeah, i got what you meant, kelkel. my reaction was mostly to a situation i had in seminar last year. a student was discussing a book and referred to the author as "mrs. ______." the prof leading the seminar almost lost it. "not mrs! doctor! professor! [first name]! oh my god, not mrs.!!!!!!"

[Kelkel]

yeah, i got what you meant, kelkel. my reaction was mostly to a situation i had in seminar last year. a student was discussing a book and referred to the author as "mrs. ______." the prof leading the seminar almost lost it. "not mrs! doctor! professor! [first name]! oh my god, not mrs.!!!!!!"

Oh that's hilarious!

[CageFree]

In emailing POIs at one institution, once I got an offer, the professor not only asked me to call him by his NICKNAME (i.e. Joe instead of Joseph), but signed it that way too. And he referred to the other POI the same (which is how this POI signed all correspondence). Then again, I'm on the West Coast and I think we are a lot more informal out here than in the rest of the country.

[remenis]

In emailing POIs at one institution, once I got an offer, the professor not only asked me to call him by his NICKNAME (i.e. Joe instead of Joseph), but signed it that way too. And he referred to the other POI the same (which is how this POI signed all correspondence). Then again, I'm on the West Coast and I think we are a lot more informal out here than in the rest of the country.

I got that too! I was asked by a POI to call him, so I did and when he answered the phone I said "Hello, is Professor X there?" and he said it was him and then said, "First off, everyone calls me..." and asked me to call him by his nickname. But even though he had been signing emails that way, I would never have adressed him that way until he told me to.